"ED has done nothing wrong" argue Mahiya - he rigged elections and not for first time but will be last P Guramatunhu

“Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association spokesperson Douglas Mahiya yesterday accused the MDC of "conniving" with former colonisers and global capitalists to cause chaos in the country, and urged patience with Mnangagwa,” reported News Day

"With these few days in power, what kind of miracle can be done to turn around the economy when we had 38 years of waste under Mugabe?" he asked rhetorically.

"We have come a long way and this new dispensation is very young and has been in power for a few days. Why can't people give it time? Why not allow ED to go a while and look at things positively than to continue the political onslaught against Zanu PF and ED when he has done nothing?”

ED has done nothing! This is the kind of idiotic think that has got Zimbabwe into this political and economic hell-on-earth and must be slammed down decisively. There are five important historic facts that Douglas Mahiya and all Zanu PF zealots must never forget:

1)   ED and most of those in the Zanu PF junta today have been senior members of the Mugabe regimes all these last 38 years. They played the part in the establishment and retaining of the de facto one party dictatorship. ED, Constantino Chiwenga, Perrance Shiri and a few others were Mugabe’s henchmen and their hands are bright red with the innocent blood of the over 30 000 the regime has murdered in cold blood in pursuit of the absolute power and the wealth and influence it brought. ED and the junta members have taken their share of the spoils of power and many of them remain to this day some of the richest individual on earth whose wealth was made on the backs of povo who live in abject poverty.

2)   If ED and the junta did not agree with Robert Mugabe’s leadership then why did they stay in the party all these last 37 years. Indeed, they not only stayed but they imposed the regime on the nation by rigging the elections. It was none other than ED and company who staged the 2008 coup to stop Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC getting into power. The same thugs staged the 2017 coup, this time to remove Mugabe from power because the latter was in the process of booting them out of power.

The November 2017 coup was a culmination of the dog-eat-dog power struggle within Zanu PF and not about democratic transformation; hence, after the coup, the it is still a party of corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs. All this talk of “new dispensation” is just hyped nonsense for the naïve and gullible.

3)    Following last November’s coup, ED promised to hold free, fair and credible elections; he knew the coup made his regime illegitimate and knew keeping his promise would get the stigma lifted. His greed for absolute power had the better of him as he went on to once again, as he had done countless time in the past, blatantly rig the elections.

Of course, ED rig the elections and it is utterly pointless to deny it. How can the elections be free and fair when 2 to 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote; when ZEC failed to release a verified voters’ roll allowing multiple voting; etc.

4)   By rigging the elections ED has confirmed Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by the same corrupt and vote rigging thugs. No one with half a brain should therefore be surprise that the flood on investors the junta had hoped for following its “Zimbabwe is open for business!” mantra has never happened. Investors do NOT do business in pariah states.

Mahiya can blame MDC leaders for the sanctions, economic meltdown, etc.; that is typical of Zanu PF thug mentality, find scapegoat for the regime’s own failures.

5)    After 38 years of Zanu PF rigging elections and getting away with it with the tragic economic, political and social consequences we can no longer ignore; the matter of free, fair and credible elections is now the elephant in the room Zimbabweans must deal with.

It is not enough to demand free, fair and credible elections and then do nothing to those who blatantly break the rules. ED and his junta rigged the 30 July 2018 elections; it was not by accident, this was a deliberate and calculated act; it was not the first time, Zanu PF has rigged elections ever since it got into power in 1980.

If we are serious about wanting the rule of law then we must up hold the mother of all the laws: no one is above the law. By rigging the elections ED and the junta broke the law and they must be held to account, they must step down.

6) If ED and the junta are allowed to remain in office after they rigged the elections then we are not only rewarding them for breaking the law but worse still giving them the opportunity to rig the next elections in 2023. It is within our power to break this cycle of rigged elections followed by five years of misrule concluded in yet another rigged elections to start the cycle all over.